April 12 (25)-April 27 (May 10), 1905

13

Report on the Question of the Participation of the
Social-Democrats in a Provisional Revolutionary Government

April 18 (May 1)

Mytask is to present the question of the participation of the Social-Democrats
in a provisional revolutionary government. It may seem strange, at first
glance, that such a question should have arisen. One might think the cause of
Social-Democracy to be thriving and the probability of its participation in a
provisional revolutionary government to be very great. Actually it is not so. To
debate this question as an immediately realisable prospect would be
quixotic. But the question has been forced upon us not so much by the actual
state of affairs as by literary polemics. It must always be borne in mind that
the question was first raised by Martynov, and that he raised it before
January 9. He wrote in his pamphlet Two Dictatorships (pp. 10-11):

“Imagine,dear reader, for a moment, that Lenin’s utopia has been realised;
imagine that the Party, whose membership has been narrowed down to only
professional revolutionaries, has succeeded in ’preparing, timing, and
carrying out the general armed uprising of the people’. Is it not obvious that
it would be this Party which would he designated as the provisional
government by the will of the whole people immediately after the revolution? Is it
not obvious that the people would place the immediate fate of the revolution in
the hands of this Party, and no other? Is it not obvious that this Party, not
wishing to betray the confidence previously placed in it by the people, would
he forced, he in duty bound, to assume power and maintain it until it
had consolidated the victory of the revolution by revolutionary measures?”

Incredibleas it may seem, this is actually how the question is presented:
Martynov believes that if we were thoroughly
to prepare and launch the uprising, we should find our selves in a
desperate predicament. If we were to submit our dispute to a foreigner, he would
never believe it possible for the question to be formulated in that manner and
he would not understand us. Our dispute cannot be understood without a knowledge
of the history of Russian Social-Democratic views and the nature of the
tail-endist views of Rabocheye Dyelo. This question has become an
urgent question of theory and must be clarified. It is a question of clarity in
our aims. I urge the comrades when reporting on our discussion to the members
engaged in practical Party work in Russia to emphasise strongly Martynov’s
formulation of the question.

Iskra,No. 96, contains an article by Plekhanov. We have always held
Plekhanov in great esteem for the “of fence” he has repeatedly given
to the opportunists, which, to his honour, has earned him a mass of enemies. But
we cannot esteem him for defending Martynov. This is not the Plekhanov we
knew. He entitles his article “On the Question of the Seizure of
Power”. This artificially narrows the issue. We have never thus presented
the question. Plekhanov presents things as though Vperyod called Marx
and Engels “virtuosi of philistinism”. But that is not so; it is a
slight substitution. Vperyod expressly stressed the correctness of
Marx’s general conception of this question. The charge of philistinism referred
to Martynov or to L. Martov. Well disposed though we are to hold in high esteem
all who collaborate with Plekhanov, it must be said, however, that Martynov is
not Marx. Plekhanov errs in seeking to hush up Martynovism.

Martynovasserts that if we take a decisive part in the uprising, we shall be
in great danger of being forced by the proletariat to take power. This argument
has a certain original logic of its own, although a logic of retreat. It is in
reference to this peculiar warning against the danger of victory in the
struggle against the autocracy that Vperyod asks Martynov and L. Martov
what they are talking about: a socialist or a democratic dictatorship? We are
referred to Engels’ famous words about the danger involved in the position of a
leader who has been given power in behalf of a class that is not yet mature for
the exercise of complete domination. We explained in Vperyod that
Engels points out the danger to the position of a leader when he establishes
post factum a divergence between principle and reality, between words
and facts. Such a divergence leads to disaster in the sense of political
failure, not in the sense of physical
defeat[1]
;
you must affirm (this is
Engels’ thought) that the revolution is socialistic, when it is really only
democratic. If we promised the Russian proletariat now that we could secure
its complete domination immediately, we would fall into the error of the
Socialists-Revolutionaries. It is this mistake of the
Socialists-Revolutionaries that we Social-Democrats have always
ridiculed—their claim that the revolution will be “democratic
and not bourgeois”. We have constantly said that the revolution would
strengthen the bourgeoisie, not weaken it, but that it would create for the
proletariat the necessary conditions for waging a successful struggle for
socialism.

Butsince it is a question of a democratic revolution, we are faced with two
forces: the autocracy and the revolutionary people, viz., the proletariat as
the chief combatant, and the peasantry and all the different petty-bourgeois
elements. The interests of the proletariat do not coincide with those of the
peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie. Social-Democracy has always stressed, the
fact that these class differences in the midst of a revolutionary people are
unavoidable. In a hard-fought struggle, the object of the struggle may change
from hand to hand. A revolutionary people strives for the sovereignty of the
people; all the reactionary elements defend the sovereignty of the tsar. A
successful revolution, therefore, cannot be anything but the democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, whose interests, equally
opposed to the sovereignty of the tsar, coincide. Both Iskra
and Vperyod are agreed on the slogan “To march separately but
strike together”, but Vperyod adds that striking jointly means
jointly striking the final blow and jointly beating off the enemy’s attempts to
recover the ground he has lost. After the overthrow of the autocracy, the
struggle will not cease, but become more intense. That is precisely the time
when the reactionary forces will organise for the struggle in real earnest. If
we are going to employ the slogan of the uprising, we must not frighten the
Social-Democrats with the possibility of victory in the uprising. When we have
won the sovereignty of the people, we shall have to consolidate it—this is
what is meant by the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship. We have no reason
whatever to fear it. The establishment of the republic would be a tremendous
victory for the proletariat, although, unlike the bourgeois revolutionary, the
Social-Democrat does not regard the republic as the “absolute ideal”
but merely as some thing that will guarantee him freedom to wage the struggle
for socialism on a broad basis. Parvus says that in no other country has the
struggle for freedom entailed such tremendous sacrifices. This is true. It is
confirmed by the European bourgeois press, which is following events in Russia
very closely from the outside. The autocracy’s resistance to the most elementary
reforms is incredibly strong, and the greater the action the greater the
counter-action. Hence the autocracy’s utter collapse is highly probable. The
entire question of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship hinges on the
complete overthrow of the autocracy. Possibly the history of 1848-50 will repeat
itself with us, that is, the autocracy will not be overthrown but only limited
in power and converted into a constitutional monarchy. In that case a democratic
dictatorship will be out of the question. If, however, the autocratic government
is really over thrown, it will have to be replaced by another. This other can be
only a provisional revolutionary government. It can base itself for support only
on the revolutionary people—on the proletariat and the peasantry. It can
be only a dictatorship, that is, not an organisation of “order”, but
an organisation of war. If you are storming a fortress, you cannot discontinue
the war even after you have taken the fortress. Either the one or the other:
either we take the fortress to hold it, or we do not storm the fortress and
explain that all we want is a little place next to it.

Letme pass on to Plekhanov. His method is totally incorrect. He evades
important questions of principle to indulge in quibbling, with an element of
misstatement. (Exclamation by Comrade Barsov: “Hear, hear!”)
Vperyod maintains that Marx’s general scheme is correct (that of
replacing the autocracy first by a bourgeois monarchy and then by a
petty-bourgeois democratic republic); but if we set out
beforehand to restrict the limits to which we shall go in accordance with this
scheme, we shall prove ourselves philistines. Thus, Plekhanov’s defence of
Marx is verlorene Liebesmühe (love’s labour’s lost). In
defending Martynov, Plekhanov refers to the Address[3]
of the Central Committee of the Communist League[4]
to the League membership. Plekhanov
misstates this Address too. He draws a veil over the fact that it was
written at a time when the people had failed to score a complete victory,
notwithstanding the victorious uprising of the Berlin proletariat in
1848. Absolutism had been superseded by a bourgeois constitutional monarchy,
and, consequently, a provisional government backed by the entire
revolutionary people was out of the question. The whole point of the Address
is that after the failure of the popular uprising Marx advises the working
class to organise and prepare. Can
thEse
counsels serve to clarify the
situation in Russia before the uprising has begun? Can they resolve the moot
question which presupposes the victorious uprising of the proletariat? The
Address begins thus: “In the two revolutionary years 1848-49 the
League proved itself in double fashion: first, in that its members
energetically took part in the movement in all places.... The League further
proved itself in that its conception of the movement [as set forth, by the
way, in the Communist Manifesto] turned out to be the only correct
one.... At the same time, the former firm organisation of the League was
considerably slackened. A large part of the members who directly
participated in the revolutionary movement believed the time for
secret societies to have gone by and public activities alone
sufficient. The individual
circles and communities allowed their connections with the Central
Committee (Zentralbehörde) to be come loose and gradually
dormant. Consequently, while the democratic party, the party of the
petty bourgeoisie, organised itself more and more in Germany, the
workers’ party lost its only firm hold, remained organised at the
most in separate localities for local purposes and in the
general movement (in der aligemeinen Bewegung) thus came
completely under the
domination and leadership of the petty-bourgeois democrats”
(Ansprache, p. 75).

Thus,Marx found in 1850 that the petty-bourgeois democrats had gained in
organisation during the Revolution of
1848, which had run its course, while the workers’ party had lost. Naturally,
Marx’s chief concern was that the workers’ party should not lag behind the
bourgeoisie a second time. It is “extremely important that ... precisely
at this moment, when a new revolution is impending, the workers’ party must act
in the most organised, most unanimous and most independent fashion possible, if
it is not to be exploited and taken in tow again by the bourgeoisie as in 1848”
(An sprache, p. 76).

Itis because the bourgeois democrats were better organised that Marx did not
doubt that they would definitely predominate, should a second revolution take
place at once. “That, during the further development of the revolution,
the petty-bourgeois democracy will for a moment (für einen Augenblick)
obtain predominating influence in Germany is not open to doubt”
(Ansprache, p. 78). Taking all this into consideration, we can
understand why Marx does not mention a word in Ansprache about the
participation of the proletariat in a provisional revolutionary
government. Plekhanov, therefore, is entirely incorrect in asserting
that Marx “considered
inadmissible the thought that the political representatives of the proletariat
could work together with the representatives of the petty bourgeoisie for the
creation of a new social order” (Iskra, No. 96). This is not
correct. Marx does not raise the question of participation in
a provisional revolutionary government, whereas Plekhanov makes it
appear as though
Marx decided this question in the negative. Marx says: We
Social-Democrats have all been lagging behind, we are worse organised, we must
organise independently for the eventuality that the petty bourgeoisie will come
to power after a new revolution. From these premises of Marx, Martynov draws the
following conclusion: We Social-Democrats, now better organised than the petty-bourgeois democrats and constituting undoubtedly an in dependent party, ought to
shrink from having to participate in a provisional revolutionary
government in the event of a successful uprising. Yes! Comrade Plekhanov,
Marxism is one thing and Martynovism another. To bring out more clearly the
great difference between the situation in Russia in 1905 and that in Germany in
1850, let us deal with some further interesting passages in the Address. Marx
did not
even mention the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat, for he believed in
the direct socialist dictatorship of the proletariat immediately after the
petty-bourgeois revolution. On the agrarian question, for instance, he
says that the democrats want to create a petty-bourgeois peasant class,
but that the workers must oppose this plan in the interests of the rural
proletariat and in their own interests; they must demand that the
confiscated feudal landed property remain state property, and that it be
used for labour colonies in which the associated rural proletariat should
employ all the means of large-scale agriculture. Obviously, with such
plans in mind, Marx could not speak of a democratic dictatorship. He wrote, not on the eve of the revolution, as the representative
of the organised proletariat, but after the revolution, as the
representative of the workers in the process of organising. Marx emphasises
the first task as follows: “After the overthrow of the existing
governments, the Central Committee will, as soon as it is at all possible,
betake itself to Germany, immediately convene a congress, and put before
the latter the necessary proposals for the centralisation of the workers’
clubs....” Thus, the idea of an independent workers’ party, which has become
with us bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, was then something new. We
must not forget that in 1848, when Marx was editing the free and extremely
revolutionary newspaper (Die Neue Rheinische
Zeitung[5]),
he had no working-class organisation behind him. His paper was
supported by bourgeois radicals, who nearly wrecked it when Marx made his
scathing attack on the Paris bourgeoisie after the June Days. That is why
the Address has so much to say about the independent organisation of the
workers. It deals with the formation of revolutionary workers’ governments
parallel with the new official government, whether in the form of workers’
clubs and committees or of local communal councils and municipalities. The
point made therein is that the workers should be armed and that they should
form an independent workers’ guard. The second clause in the programme
states that working-class candidates, preferably members of the League,
should be nominated for these bodies alongside the bourgeois candidates. How
weak the League was is shown by the fact that Marx had to argue the need for
nominating
independent candidates. The inference to be drawn from all this is that Marx did
not mention and had no intention of deciding the question of participation in a
provisional revolutionary government, since that question could have no
practical significance at the time; the entire attention was concentrated
exclusively on the organisation of an independent workers’ party.

Plekhanovsays further in Iskra that Vperyod produces no
relevant evidence, but confines itself to repeating a few favourite catchwords,
and he alleges that Vperyod seeks to criticise Marx. With what truth?
Do we not see, on the contrary, that Vperyod puts the question on a
concrete basis, taking into account the real social forces engaged in Russia in
the struggle for the democratic revolution? Plekhanov, on the other hand, does
not say a word about the concrete conditions in Russia. His stock-in-trade
consists of a couple of inapposite quotations. Monstrous, but true. The
situation in Russia differs so greatly from that in Western Europe that even
Parvus was prompted to ask: Where is our revolutionary democracy? Unable to
prove that Vperyod wants to “criticise” Marx, Plekhanov
drags in Mach and Avenarius by the ears. I cannot for the life of me understand
what these writers, for whom I have not the slightest sympathy, have to do with the
question of social revolution. They wrote on individual and social organisation
of experience, or some such theme, but they never really gave any thought to the
democratic dictatorship. Does Plekhanov mean to say that Parvus, perhaps, has
become a disciple of Mach and Avenarius? (Laughter.) Or perhaps things
have come to such a pass with Plekhanov that he has to make a butt of Mach and
Avenarius without rhyme or reason. Plekhanov goes on to say that Marx and Engels
soon lost faith in an imminent social revolution. The Communist League broke
up. Petty squabbles arose among the political emigrants abroad, which Marx and
Engels put down to the fact that while there were revolutionaries there was no
revolution. Plekhanov writes in Iskra: “They [Marx and Engels,
who had lost faith in an imminent social revolution] would have formulated the
political tasks of the proletariat on the assumption that the democratic system
would be predominant for a fairly long time. But for this very reason they would
have been
more emphatic than ever in condemning the socialists’ participation in a
petty-bourgeois government” (Iskra, No. 96). Why? No
answer. Once more Plekhanov uses democratic dictatorship interchangeably
with socialist
dictator ship,
i.e., he falls into Martynov’s error, against
which Vperyod has time and again strongly warned. Without the
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry no republic is
possible in Russia. This assertion was made by Vperyod on the basis
of an analysis of the actual situation. Unfortunately, Marx did not know
this situation and he did not write of it. Therefore the analysis of this
situation can neither be confirmed nor refuted with simple quotations from
Marx. As to the concrete conditions, Plekhanov says not a word.

Evenless felicitous is the adducing of the second quotation from Engels. For
one thing, it is rather odd of Plekhanov to refer to a private letter without
mention of the time and place of its publication.[6]
We could only be
grateful for the publication of Engels’ letters, but we should like to see their
full text. We have, however, some information which permits us to judge of the
true meaning of Engels’ letter.

Weknow definitely, in the second place, that the situation in Italy in the
nineties was nothing like the present situation in Russia. Italy had been
enjoying freedom for forty years. In Russia the working class cannot even
dream of such freedom without a bourgeois revolution. In Italy, consequently,
the working class had long been in a position to develop an independent
organisation for the socialist revolution. Turati is the Italian Millerand. It
is quite possible, therefore, that even at that time Turati advocated
Millerandian ideas. This assumption is borne out by the fact that, according to
Plekhanov himself, Engels had to explain to Turati the difference between a
bourgeois-democratic and a socialist revolution. Thus, Engels feared that
Turati would find himself in the false position of a leader who did not
understand the social significance of the revolution in which he was taking
part. Accordingly, we must say again of Plekhanov that he confounds democratic
with socialist revolution.

Butperhaps we might find in Marx and Engels an answer which, though not
applying to the concrete situation in
Russia, would apply to the general principles of the revolutionary struggle of
the proletariat? Iskra at any rate raises one such general question.

Itstates in issue No. 93: “The best way to organise the proletariat into
a party in opposition to the bourgeois-democratic state is to develop the
bourgeois revolution from below through the pressure of the proletariat
on the democrats in power.” Iskra goes on: “Vperyod
wants the pressure of the proletariat on the revolution [?] to be exerted not
only from below, not only from the street, but also from above, from the marble
halls of the provisional government.” This formulation is correct;
Vperyod does want this. We have here a really general question of
principle: is revolutionary action permissible only from below, or also from
above? To this general question we can find an answer in Marx and Engels.

Ihave in mind Engels’ interesting article “The Bakuninists at
Work”[7]
(1873). Engels describes briefly the Spanish Revolution of 1873, when the
country was swept by a revolution of the Intransigentes, i.e., the extreme
republicans. Engels stresses the fact that the immediate emancipation of the
working class was out of the question at that time. The task was to accelerate
for the proletariat the transition through the preliminary stages that prepare
the social revolution and to clear the obstacles in its way. The working class
of Spain could utilise this opportunity only by taking an active part in the
revolution. In this it was hindered by the influence of the Bakuninists and,
among other things, by their idea of the general strike, which Engels criticised
so effectively. Engels describes, in passing, the events in Alcoy, a city with
30,000 factory workers, where the proletariat found itself master of the
situation. How did the proletariat act? Despite the principles of Bakuninism,
they were obligated to participate in the provisional revolutionary
government. “The Bakuninists,” says Engels, “had for years been
propagating the idea that all revolutionary action from above downward was
pernicious, and that every thing must be organised and carried out from below
upward.”

This,then, is Engels’ answer to the general question of “from above or
from below” raised by Iskra. The “Iskra” principle of
“only from below and never from above” is an anarchist
principle. Drawing his conclusion from the events of the
Spanish revolution, Engels says: “The Bakuninists repudiated the credo
which they had just proclaimed: that the establishment of a revolutionary
government was only a new deception and a new betrayal of the working
class [as Plekhanov is trying to persuade us now], by figuring quite
complacently on the government committees of the various cities, and at
that almost everywhere as an impotent minority outvoted and exploited
politically by the bourgeoisie.” Thus, what displeases Engels is the
fact that the Bakuninists were in the minority, and not the fact that they
sat there on these committees. At the conclusion of his pamphlet,
Engels declares that the example of the Bakuninists is “an example of
how not to make a revolution”.

IfMartov confined his revolutionary work exclusively to action from below, he
would be repeating the mistake of the Bakuninists.

Iskra,however, after inventing differences on points of principle with
Vperyod, comes round to our own point of view. Martynov, for instance,
says that the proletariat, in common with the people, must force the bourgeoisie
to consummate the revolution. This, however, is nothing but the revolutionary
dictatorship of “the people”, viz., of the proletariat and the
peasantry. The bourgeoisie has no wish what ever to consummate the
revolution. But the people cannot help wanting this because of the social
conditions of their existence. The revolutionary dictatorship will educate them
and draw them into political life.

Iskrawrites in issue No. 95:

“If,however, we should finally be swept into power against our will by the
inner dialectics of the revolution at a time when the national conditions for
the establishment of socialism are not yet mature, we would not hack out. We
would make it our aim to break down the narrow national framework of the
revolution and impel the Western world towards revolution, as France impelled
the East a century ago.”

Thus,Iskra itself admits that, were it our misfortune to be
victorious, we should have to act in keeping with the Vperyod
position. Hence, in the practical aspect of the question,
“Iskra” follows “Vperyod” and undermines its own
position. The only thing I fail to understand is how Martov and Martynov can be
dragged to power against their own will. If ever there was idiocy!

Iskracites France as an example. But that was Jacobin France. To make
a bogy of Jacobinism in time of revolution is a cheap trick. A democratic
dictatorship, as I have pointed out, is not an organisation of
“order”, but an organisation of war. Even if we did seize
St. Petersburg and guillotined Nicholas, we would still have several
Vendées[8]
to deal with. Marx understood this perfectly when in 1848,
in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, he recalled the Jacobins. He said that
“the Reign of Terror of 1793 was nothing but a plebeian mariner of
settling accounts with absolutism and counter-revolution.”[9]
We,
too, prefer to settle accounts with the Russian autocracy by
“plebeian” methods and leave Girondist methods to Iskra.
The situation confronting the Russian revolution is singularly auspicious (an
anti-popular war, the Asiatic conservatism of the autocracy, etc.), and it
justifies the hope that the uprising may prove successful. The revolutionary
temper of the proletariat is mounting almost hourly. At such a moment
Martynovism is not mere folly, but a downright crime, for it saps the
revolutionary energy of the proletariat, clips the wings of its revolutionary
enthusiasm. (Lyadov: “Hear, hear!”) It is the mistake Bernstein
made in the German Party, under different circumstances, on the question, not
of the democratic, but of the socialist dictatorship.

Togive you a definite idea of what these celebrated “marble halls”
of the provisional revolutionary government are really like, I shall quote still
another source. In his article “Die
Reichsverfassungskampagne”[2]
Engels recounts how he took part in a
revolution in the precincts of these “marble halls”. He describes,
for instance, the uprising in Rhenish Prussia, which was one of the most
industrialised centres in Germany. The chances for the victory of the democratic
party, he says, were particularly strong there. The thing to do was to rush all
available forces to the right bank of the Rhine, spread the insurrection over a
wider area and try to set up the nucleus of a revolutionary army with the aid of
the Landwehr (militia). This was precisely what Engels proposed when
he went to Elberfeld to do everything possible to put his plan into
operation. He attacks the petty-bourgeois
leaders for their inability to organise the insurrection, for
their failure to furnish funds, for instance, for the maintenance of the
workers fighting on the barricades, etc. They should have acted more
energetically, he says. Their first step should have been to disarm the
Elberfeld Citizens’ Army and distribute its arms among the workers,
and then to levy a compulsory tax for the maintenance of the workers thus
armed. But this suggestion, says Engels, came only and exclusively from
me. The highly respectable Committee of Public Safety was not in the
least inclined to take such “terrorist measures”.

Thus,while our Marx and Engels—that is, Martynov and Martov (Homeric
laughter)—try to frighten us with the bogy of Jacobinism, Engels
castigated the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie for its disdain of the
“Jacobin” mode of operation. He understood that going to war
and—in the course of the war—renouncing the State Treasury and
government power meant engaging in an unworthy game of words. Where, then, will
you get money for the uprising, if it becomes an all-people’s uprising,
gentlemen of the new Iskra? Not from the State Treasury, surely? That
is bourgeois! That is Jacobinism!

Concerningthe uprising in Baden Engels writes that “the insurgent
government had every chance of success, in that it found ... a ready army,
well-stocked arsenals ... a full State Treasury, and what was practically solid
support of the population”. After the event everyone understood what had
to be done under the circumstances. What had to be done was to organise an army
for the protection of the National Assembly, to drive the Austrians and
Prussians back, to spread the revolt to the neighbouring states, and
“bring the trembling German so-called National Assembly under the
terroristic influence of an insurgent population and insurgent army.... It was
necessary, furthermore, to centralise the power of the insurrection, put the
necessary funds at its disposal and win for the insurrection the sympathy of the
vast farming majority of the population by immediately abolishing all feudal
burdens.... All this should have been done at once, however, if it was to be
carried out promptly. A week after the appointment of the Committee of Safety it
was too late”.

Weare convinced that when the uprising starts in Russia the revolutionary
Social-Democrats, following the example of Engels, will enlist as soldiers of
the revolution and will give the same kind of “Jacobin” advice. But
our Iskra prefers to discuss the colour of the ballot envelopes,
relegating to the background the question of the provisional revolutionary
government and of a revolutionary guard for the Constituent Assembly. Our
Iskra will not act “from above” under any circumstances.

FromKarlsruhe Engels went to Pfalz, where his friend D’Ester (who had once
freed Engels from arrest) was, on the provisional government. “Official
participation in a movement that was utterly alien to our party was plainly out
of the question in this case as well,” Engels says. He had “to take the
only position in this movement that anyone working on the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung could take: that of a soldier.” We have spoken of the break-up of
the Communist League, which deprived Engels of practically all ties with the
workers’ organisations. This clarifies the passage we quoted:
“I was offered many civilian and military posts,” writes Engels,
“posts that I would not have hesitated for a moment to accept in a
proletarian movement. Under the circumstances I declined them all.”

Aswe see, Engels did not fear to act from above; he did not fear that the
proletariat might become too organised and too strong, which could lead to its
participation in the provisional government. On the contrary, he regretted that
the movement was not successful enough, not proletarian enough, because the
workers were completely unorganised. But even under these circumstances, Engels
accepted a post; he served in the army as Willich’s adjutant, took over the
delivery of ammunition, transporting under the greatest difficulties powder,
lead, cartridges, etc. “To die for the republic was (thenceforward) my
aim,” writes Engels.

Ileave it to you, comrades, to judge whether this picture of a provisional
government drawn according to the words of Engels resembles the “marble
halls” which the new Iskra is holding up as a bogy to frighten
the workers away from us. (Applause.) (The speaker reads
his draft of the resolution and explains it.)

[4]The Communist League—the first
international association of the revolutionary proletariat, founded in the
summer of 1847 in London at the congress of delegates from revolutionary
proletarian organisations. The organisers and leaders of the Communist League
were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who were commissioned by that organisation
to write the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The Communist League
existed up to 1852. Its most prominent members eventually played a leading
role in the First International. (See Marx and Engels, Selected Works,
Moscow, 1958, Vol. II,
pp. 338-57.)

[5]Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung appeared in Cologne between June 1,
1848, and May 19, 1849, under the management of Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels. The Editor-in-Chief was Marx. Under the blows
of reaction the newspaper ceased its existence after issue No. 301.
On the Neue Rheinische Zeitung see Marx and Engels, Selected
Works, Moscow, 1958, Vol. II, pp. 328-37.

[6]
The reference is to Engels’ letter to Filippo Turati dated
January 26,
1894, and published in the Italian hi-monthly CriticaSociale, No. 3,
for February 1, 1894, under the heading “The Future Italian Revolution
and the Socialist Party.” (See Marx and Engels, Selected
Correspondence, Moscow, 1955, pp. 551-55.)

[7]
The Russian translation of Engels’ article
“Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit. Denkschrift über den Aufstand in Spanien
im Sommer 1873” (published in 1873 in “Internationales aus dem
Volksstaat”), was edited by Lenin and issued in pamphlet form by
the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. in Geneva in 1905 and in
St. Petersburg in 1906.

[8]Vendle—a department of France where, during
the French bourgeois revolution of the late eighteenth century, a
counter-revolutionary insurrection of the backward, reactionary peasantry took
place against the revolutionary Convention. The revolt was engineered by the
counter-revolutionary clergy and landlords with the help
of religious catchwords.